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GOP threatens to slow appropriations process |
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By Jackie Kucinich
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Posted: 06/10/07 11:38 PM [ET] |
Republicans this week are prepared to use parliamentary procedures in a coordinated attack to try and thwart changes in the way the House adds earmarks to appropriations bills, according to GOP sources.
It is the Republicans’ response to what they say is an egregious abuse of the earmarking process and an unacceptable rule change. They have objected to an announcement by Democrats that earmarks will be added in House and Senate conference instead of allowing each request to be vetted in committee or on the House floor.
Democrats said there has been no rule change and that the alteration in the timing of earmarks has more to do with a lack of time than anything else.
“There have been 30,000 requests for projects,” a spokeswoman for Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) said, adding that with the debate over the Iraq war and new ethics requirements, staff simply has been backed up.
Republicans have accused Democrats of making the earmark process secret, calling the money reserved for earmarks in appropriations bills a “slush fund” and plan to use aggressive floor tactics this week to highlight what they perceive as a fundamental rule change.
They will seek to disrupt the process with a series of procedures including offering amendments to each bill to spotlight different earmarks they deem wasteful in last year’s funding bill and “making the reading clerk read each bill and amendment in its entirety” according to GOP aides.
Tactics could also include filing a discharge petition that would require Democrats to vote again on the Republican earmark reform legislation that was adopted in the 109th Congress.
In their weekly leadership colloquy Thursday afternoon, Republican leaders spoke out against the move to push appropriations bills through committee without earmarks and then add them during conference.
“I hope we can work together to find a better solution than to put all of these earmarks in at the last possible minute so they can’t possibly be looked at to any extent,” Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said. “You…would expect the highly volatile topic of earmarks to be handled in a conference that the members possibly barely have time to look at and the media has even less time to look at it. It is a huge problem, and I hope we can continue to talk about it.”
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) responded that the process had to be changed slightly in order to get the appropriations bills through Congress in a timely fashion. Hoyer also said he would be open to hearing the minority’s concerns.
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) remained unconvinced.
“By withholding all earmarks until the last second Democrats are hiding wasteful spending from the American people,” Boehner said in a statement on Thursday. “ This is a sham and a brazen attempt to protect pork-barrel spending….This makes a mockery of the Democrats’ pledge to make the appropriations process more open and transparent, and Republicans will fight at every opportunity to force the majority to restore the reforms we enacted last year.”
Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) the ranking member of the Appropriation Committee echoed Boehner’s concerns and criticized the Democrats, saying the bills created an unspecified “pot of money” during a recent committee mark up.
“This bill provides $4.3 billion for unspecified projects,” Lewis said. “What that really means is that the bill before us recommends a $4.3 billion pot of money with zero direction from Congress on how the Corps [of Engineers] should allocate this money.”
Obey responded to Lewis and elaborated on the problem of sifting through the thousands of earmark requests in a timely manner.
“It is my responsibility to try to correct that problem in a way which protects the Congress, in a way which protects this Committee, in a way which protects this Institution, and in a way which protects taxpayers’ money in the process,” Obey said. “Now we have had a reform of the process, under the rubric of transparency. And under that proposal, when earmarks are presented to the congress, sponsorship of those earmarks must be listed. I guarantee you, they will be or there will be no earmarks. “
“I have to sign off on every committee report, I have to sign off and declare to the House whether or not every earmark is described accurately in that report,” Obey added. “And I cannot do that until the staff has run through every single one of these projects.” |
